Curriculum

Reading/Language Arts

  • Word Work -
  • We are studying digraphs (-sh/-th/-wh/-ch) and homophones ( two or three words that sound the same, but have a different spelling and a different meaning).
  • Read Aloud - Magic Tree House - Hour of the Olympics
  • Writing -
  • We are writing in our journals every day. This week we are focusing on using capital letters at the beginning of the sentence and for proper nouns, as well as using appropriate ending marks (., ?,!) and finger spaces between our words. Brave spelling (developmental/phonetic spelling) is always encouraged.
  • Book Reports - "Warming up to a Good Book" These book reports were started with a homework assignment where students chose a book they could read independently or somewhat independently. They then completed a graphic organizer giving 3 reasons they liked the book they chose. They wrote a "report" about the book they chose, the author, and why they liked it. We put our book reports on hot chocolate mugs that were displayed above or classroom reading corner/library.

Math

  • Fluency of Facts -
  • Study your facts!
  • Subtraction/Related Facts - We are now studying the concept of taking away (minus). We are writing subtraction number sentences and the term "difference". We also are studying "related facts", which are addition and subtraction number sentences using the same three numbers (3+4=7 and 7-4=3). We extended this concept by learning about Fact Families. Fact Families include 2 addition and 2 subtraction sentences using the same three numbers ( 4+5=9/5+4=9/9-5=4/9-4=5). We also incorporated geometry and made geometric snowmen that displayed fact families.
  • Number of the Day - We journal in our math spiral notebooks daily. We often do a Number of the Day, which helps students use many strategies to express that number (expanded form, place value, tally marks, odd/even, adding/subtracting, number line, order of numbers, etc.). Sometimes we solve Greg Tang story problems and complete his number study too.

Science & Social Studies

  • Light and Sound - This week we are being investigators and testing which materials light travels through best.
  • Health - this week we are learning about keeping ourselves healthy and how germs spread. Students are tracking their healthy habits so they can keep germs away.